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My final payment on a trans-Atlantic is due in a couple of days. Late Sept. sailing out of London; one-way air bought.

I currently have a 7A balcony for under $100 a day on this 15-day cruise. Quite good. Except that the ship has lots of unsold cabins in most every category. So I am thinking that I may get a far better deal if I cancel and rebook after the final payment deadline passes.

Clearly this is my decision. Two questions: I have bought Carnival transfers from LHR to Dover plus a tour in Iceland. If I canceled, would I have to cancel those as well. Or could they be transferred to my new booking number when available.

You need to verify that your reservation is fully refundable before deciding to cancel. You also need to consider that there may be people who have booked a guarentee and have not been assigned a cabin. Often the ship is not as empty as some think

Any reservations you have made are attached to your cabin booking. If you cancel that booking, your reservations will be cancelled. You may find they are full and when you try to rebook, you could be denied.

Don't cancel, IMO

You got a ery good price. You were happy with it when you booked and acknowledge now it is a good price.

If final payment has not come yet, the cruise line may negotiate the fare with you, since you can still cancell. Once final payment is made, then promotions are generally for 'new bookings only', so it is too late. The only thing you may do then, is to possibly get credit for the fare you already paid towards purchasing an upgrade to a newly discounted cabin...

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getting there is half the fun!
coming back is the other half!

If I thought prices on balcony cabins would drop substantially after final payment, I might consider downgrading before final payment (if I could do so without penalty, keep my land bookings, and could have a shot at upgrading later). I sometimes book the lowest price cabin that would satisfy me, then upgrade if and when prices drop. if prices instead rise, I stick with my basic, acceptable cabin. if prices drop I sail in a better cabin, sometimes a very nice one. That strategy has worked for me on other cruiselines, but I am not familiar enough with Carnival's policies to know if it would work on Carnival.

I canceled our 7A obstructed balcony today. Then after seeing that a 4K inside (with an obstructed wall-to-ceiling) French door cabin was available, we modified the existing booking and got 4154, which is convenient to elevators and stairs so that we can easily go down one deck to the wraparound promenade. Our new cabin may have no view -- except for a life boat -- but the door is openeable and we can get fresh air.

The savings as a result of this maneuver will be more than $400 total, enough to pay for our excursions in Iceland, Belfast and Glasgow.

On a cold-weather cruise like ours I think this is the way to go. In fact, we would have booked a 4K to begin with but at the time none was available.

We also have 4Ks booked for December, when we will do a 6-day Mexico on the Carnival Miracle, followed by a 14-day Hawaii.

Sail7seas -- Thank you. This will be an amazing cruise, regardless of the weather and whether we actually are going to be able to make it to Iceland and Greenland. This will be part of my 70th birthday celebration.

Those who have followed my postings know that our two most recent long cruises have been on Costa (more than a month) and MSC (nearly a month). In addition to this Carnival cruise, we'll spend more time on that line in November. In 2014, we are planning to take two long cruises with NCL.

Why are we trying different brands? Because we are getting old and don't want to be surrounded only by older people. We are looking for happening ships.

In our more than 20 cruises -- maybe more than 30 if we consider all B2Bs -- we have developed certain criteria. Those criteria area based on the premise that we have never had a bad cruise. Yes, there have been ups and downs but never a disaster. That's why we take it as granted that any main-line cruise line will feed us adequately.

For that reason, the itinerary and price are major considerations. It certainly was in the case of the Carnival Legend, which promises to take us cheaply through our favorite Ireland and Scotland ports and then on to Iceland (where I have spent several days before) and Greenland, which I want to see before it melts away.

Another factor favoring Carnival on this and other itineraries is the size of cabins. Even the most modest cabin is of decent size, unlike some other lines. That's why we also like HAL, although we don't like the age demographics which make the cruises dull.

It is because of the cabin size considerations that while we are happy to stay in anything on Carnival (or HAL), we have booked balconies for the two forthcoming NCL cruises which both will be in the Caribbean. The reason: Balconies were/are attractively priced and don't doom us into some broom closet.

The two Caribbean cruises we regard as nothing more than timeshares. We want sun and sea and some creature comforts. It won't matter whether even leave the ship (sure we will) because we have been to most ports several times. One of the 20-day cruises is a repositioning that begins in Tampa and ends up with a week in Bermuda. The other one is 20 days before Christmas, ending in Miami Dec. 22.

We like such pre-Chirstmas sailings. They allow us to celebrate Christmas on a nicely decorated ship. It helps that prices are usually excellent as well.

Because mine was a booking modification using an existing invoice number, all excursions transferred without a problem. That's because they are married to Carnival confirmation digits, which remained unchanged.